


Ill Wind

by Suzie_Shooter



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Alcohol, Boats and Ships, Frottage, M/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 12:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzie_Shooter/pseuds/Suzie_Shooter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yassen's hired to keep Alex out of the way for a while, but what effect will the enforced proximity have on their relationship? </p><p>Or: a boat, some vodka, and a giant octopus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ill Wind

Dreams.

Fragments, only, like splintered ice. Dark eyes, a whirling room as they danced. Sparkling jewels, and bubbles in a glass. Thick carpeted stairs. A pearl handled gun. A scream, high enough to shatter glass. 

But it was him, wasn't it, that had shattered the glass.

She'd fallen such a long way. 

Was still falling, in his dreams, out into the snow.

Feathers. Feathers, not snow? Over his face. Running into the corridor, into cobwebs, feathers, cloying.

Falling.

\--

As consciousness finally returned with the dull ache of reality, Alex waited for the ground to stop swaying beneath him. When it didn't, he opened his eyes cautiously and the reason for the swaying became apparent. He was lying sprawled on a couch beneath a canopy on a yacht. 

With a hand to his fuzzy head, Alex sat up and looked round. Sitting with his back to him a few feet away in a sunken cockpit area was the unmistakeable figure of Yassen Gregorovich. Alex swung his legs soundlessly off the leather bench and tensed to spring.

"You're awake then," Yassen remarked mildly, without turning round. Alex sighed, and padded across the deck, wondering where his shoes had gone. He slid down onto the bench next to the Russian and glared at him.

"Where am I?"

A long way from the mountains, certainly. Alex realised he had no idea how long he'd been unconscious.

Yassen looked up and something like amusement danced briefly behind his eyes. "All at sea, by the looks of things. Coffee?" He poured out a mug of fragrant black liquid from a silver pot on the table in front of him and held it out.

Alex took it, then hesitated. It smelled delicious, but -

Yassen nodded. "It's safe. I wouldn't poison good coffee."

"Which is presumably exactly what you'd say if you had," Alex retorted.

Yassen conceded the point with a one shouldered shrug. "If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it already," he said.

Realising the truth of this, Alex took a wary sip. It tasted as good as it smelled, and he felt his head clearing a little. 

"So - what's going on?" he demanded after they'd drunk in silence for a while. "Why am I here? And still alive, for that matter. Not that I'm complaining."

Yassen leaned back against the seat and looked at him, expression considering.

"There are some people who want you out of the way for a while. You've been something of a thorn in their side recently, and so they sent - someone to eliminate you."

"Davinia," Alex sighed, fleeting memory of perfume and broken glass. 

Yassen nodded, then looked curious. "What happened to her, incidentally?"

"She went out with a bang," Alex muttered, staring out to sea. 

"Mmmn." Yassen pressed his lips together, suppressing a laugh. "I didn't imagine she'd manage it somehow."

"No?" Alex looked back at him, enquiringly.

"I've met her. You strike me as smarter."

Alex leaned over, breathed confidentially into his ear. "And what about you Yassen? Am I smarter than you?"

Yassen regarded him coolly, a slight smile teasing at the corners of his mouth that unnerved Alex more than if he'd threatened him

"Perhaps. It will be interesting to find out."

"Why didn't you just kill me like she tried to? I ran right into you," he remembered, disgusted with himself. 

Yassen sighed. "It is perhaps a failing in me, preferring the world with you in it. So I took the assignment, despite knowing it would be complicated by an unwillingness to kill you."

Alex frowned. "You expect to keep me pinned up here knowing you're unwilling to kill me?"

"I didn't say I was unwilling to hurt you," Yassen clarified and Alex winced. 

"Right." He sighed. "You confuse me you know. I'm never quite sure whether you want to fight me or - "

He tailed off, and Yassen looked at him.

"Or what?"

Alex shifted uncomfortably. 

"It doesn't matter."

Yassen leaned in, close to his face. "Say it."

Alex swallowed, painfully aware of the proximity of Yassen's mouth, of his body heat.

"Or fuck me," he said defiantly, the words sounding harsh in the quiet of the seascape.

But Yassen merely smiled and sat back, and Alex found his heart was pounding.

"Do you?" he pressed.

Yassen leaned back in, until Alex could feel the tickle of his breath against his cheek.

"Perhaps you'd better lock your cabin door, just in case, hmmn?"

\--

Days passed. Alex found he was rather enjoying the peaceful pace of life on the yacht. It was just the two of them, and they sailed at anchor in a wide bay, a scattering of green islands in the distance, too far to swim to any shore, and besides, the occasional fin in the water deterred any thought of that.

Alex was tired, the pace of his life, the constant assignments were getting to him. If he let himself, he could almost forget that he was a prisoner. He wasn't restrained or threatened, and the water slid idly past beneath the boat with the days.

\--

They were half-drunk, vodka and tinkling ice, the radio playing Latin music drawn from the far off shore. 

"Is there anything you can't do?" Alex grumbled, as Yassen pared an expert twist of lime peel with a sharp knife.

Yassen smiled briefly. "I can't sing," he admitted, and Alex laughed delightedly. 

"Can you dance?"

"Depends."

"What do you mean _depends_?"

"I'm not sure you could ever get me to set foot in a nightclub. But it pays to be able to dance at formal events."

"You're telling me you can do ballroom dancing?" Alex laughed, lying weakly against the cushions, helpless at the image.

"I prefer something with a bit more life," Yassen murmured, unruffled by Alex's mocking. He smirked. "Like a tango."

" _You_ can tango?"

"You don't believe me?"

"I think you're making it up."

Yassen reached out a hand and before Alex knew what was happening he was being spun across the polished deck to the tune beating from the old radio set. 

He threw his head back and laughed, exhilarated and tipsy and let Yassen move him to the music, warm hands in his, until the tune stamped to a close and he found himself held in Yassen's arms, tight against his chest, both of them breathing hard.

Alex stared into his eyes, convinced that any second now - 

But Yassen gave a rueful laugh and let him go, clasping his shoulder briefly and going to lean against the rail.

After a second Alex joined him, feeling - he wasn't sure.

"For a minute there I thought you were going to kiss me," he said quietly. 

"I almost did," Yassen confessed in a low voice, staring out over the dark water.

Alex frowned. "Why didn't you?" 

Yassen looked at him, smoothed a rogue lock of blond hair back from Alex's eyes.

"Because you don't want me to," he said quietly. Smiled resignedly, drew the back of one finger lightly across Alex's cheek and straightened up. "Goodnight, Alex."

"Yassen!" The cry was out of Alex's mouth before he knew what he was going to say. Yassen had paused on the steps, was waiting patiently for whatever he was going to say.

What was he going to say? The moonlight and music and water and vodka made Alex - what? He wanted Yassen to want _him_ he recognised guiltily, but did he really want this? 

"Goodnight," he said instead, simply, and Yassen nodded, before turning and disappearing below.

\--

"Urgh." Alex sank down by the breakfast bar and dropped his head in his hands. 

"Feeling the worse for wear?" Yassen asked, chopping fruit with a speed that made Alex wince with finger curling alarm.

"Don't tell me you're not hungover."

"I'm not hungover," Yassen declared, dropping a small glass in front of Alex and filling it with suspiciously clear liquid.

"Please God no, no more."

"One shot. You'll feel better. Trust me."

"Trying to get me drunk again?" Alex asked, making Yassen laugh.

Alex smiled up at him with bloodshot eyes and Yassen looked thoughtful.

"I want to show you something."

"I've heard that before," joked Alex, and Yassen shook his head with mock despair. 

\--

The waters of the tiny bay were crystal clear and as Alex felt the warm water slide over his body it was like sinking into a bath. Yassen had promised there were no sharks here, had guided the boat into the little inlet with careful precision and dropped the anchor under a shady overhanging tangle of foliage.

With snorkels and flippers, they dropped into the water, and Alex floated happily along on his front, revelling in the touch of the water on his skin. Below, a panorama of jewelled fish and coral unravelled in front of his eyes, and everywhere he looked new wonders appeared.

After what felt like hours of relaxed drifting, he rolled over to float on his back, finding that Yassen was floating not far away, watching him with a smile. 

Alex swam over. "It's beautiful."

"You like it?" Yassen asked, pleased.

"I love it."

For a while they swam together in lazy silence, exploring the reef beneath the surface. Alex took to diving under and grabbing hold of the coral to keep himself down as he watched the fish darting in and out of the crevices to avoid him. 

Pleased with the game, he'd gone down again when a shoal of tiny scintillating blue fish caught his eye. He hooked a foot under a projecting outcrop and let them swim through his fingers, nibbling at his hands curiously. He was out of breath and about to shoot back to the surface when something slithered against his leg. 

Assuming it was a fish he didn't react at first, and then had a sudden image of lurking morays and tried to jerk his foot hurriedly back, banging his knee painfully as he did so.

But whatever it was wrapped around his ankle and hung on. 

Still not overly alarmed, Alex told himself it must be seaweed. Don't panic, he told himself sternly, you're just snagged, you're not that deep, Yassen's not far away.

But glancing upwards he couldn't see the Russian's shadow anywhere, or hear the splash of his fins, now he thought about it. Ducking deeper, lungs burning now, he felt around his ankle for whatever was trapping him.

As his fingers came into contact with something slimy, a second tentacle whipped out from the dark hole under the coral and lashed across his fingers, sharp edged sucker-teeth grazing his skin, trying to get a purchase. In one fearful moment Alex realised what had hold of his leg - an octopus - and the biggest one he'd ever seen. A huge malevolent eye gleamed out of the darkness, as it anchored itself firmly to the rock with all its other legs. Alex couldn't budge it, neither could he prise its suckers from his flesh.

Bubbles escaping his lips in frustration, he fought to keep from opening his mouth, desperate for air, chest aching, leg bleeding - Alex eyed the blood in alarm and wondered how far away from the sharks of the open water they actually were.

He tore frantically at the tentacle around his leg to no avail. Shadows seemed to be gathering at the edges of his vision, and he knew with a helpless inevitability that he was going to breathe in, knew he was going to drown.

Intensified visual disturbance abruptly turned out to be bubbles in the water, and then Yassen was at his back, clutching him urgently. Taking in the situation, tearing the dive knife from his leg.

There wasn't room for him to reach past to the octopus, so he let Alex take the knife, hacking frantically at the tentacle until it slipped from his leg amidst a thick spray of ink from the wounded creature. 

Yassen's arms were around him, bearing them upwards, and Alex breathed in.

\--

They were sprawled on the rocks, Alex bleeding, retching salt water. Yassen was on all fours a few feet away, gasping for breath. 

Alex looked up, realised they were on the beach. Dry land. _Main_ land. They looked at each other, and Alex realised he still had the knife.

After a long second he threw it down on the rocks at Yassen's feet. The Russian scooped it up without a word, returning it to the sheath on his leg and helping Alex to his feet, and back down to the water's edge.

\--

Alex was sitting with his legs over the side. He'd barely said a word since they returned to the yacht and let Yassen clean and dress his wounds in silence.

Now, Yassen came and sat next to him. 

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" he asked after a while, staring out to sea.

"Why didn't I try to escape?"

"You recognised my inherent superiority and the futility of trying?"

"I wish it had been."

"Me too," Yassen smiled and Alex laughed.

"I like it here," Alex said instead. "It's peaceful. Marauding sealife notwithstanding."

"I'm glad."

"I probably wouldn't have got far anyway." 

Yassen grunted noncommittally.

"Is this what Stockholm Syndrome feels like?"

Yassen laughed. "Oh Alex."

He offered the vodka bottle, but Alex shook his head. 

Yassen shrugged, drained the last, then hurled the empty bottle into the sea.

"Litterbug," Alex chided.

"I'm hoping it will hit that octopus on the head." Yassen stretched. "How's the leg?"

"Itches."

"Well, don't ask me to kiss it better, eh?"

"I'd rather you kissed me."

Yassen went still, searching his face.

"You don't mean that."

"Yes, Yassen. I do."

Yassen's fingers were warm on his skin, hesitant almost, disbelieving. Alex leaned into the touch, closing his eyes, feeling Yassen's thumb stroke along his cheekbone, palm cupping his jaw. Marvelling at how hands he'd seen kill without mercy could be so gentle, so - comforting.

He opened his eyes again, found Yassen studying him, quietly. After a second, Yassen pulled him close, wrapped his arms around him and Alex found he was settling into the lines of Yassen's body like he'd always belonged there. He laid his head against Yassen's chest and felt the Russian rest his cheek against his hair.

After a pleasantly drowsy few minutes, Alex finally looked up, a question in his eyes. Yassen sighed, hardly realising he was doing it. "You've been through a lot, lately," he said quietly. "I don't want you to confuse a need for comfort with a need for intimacy."

Alex swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. "Where's Yassen and what have you done with him?" he demanded instead, teasingly. 

Yassen smiled, shook his head. "If we do this, and it's not what you want? You'll end up hating me," he said calmly.

"So how do I prove it is what I want?" Alex asked, in a whisper, hand resting on Yassen's chest, feeling the heartbeat under his fingertips.

Yassen's eyes were still wary, but he lowered his mouth to Alex's in surrender. Despite his misgivings his lips moved against Alex's now with a firmness of purpose, and Alex yielded before him, letting Yassen lick his way into his mouth, nothing tentative about Yassen's kiss, regardless of his words. 

Snaking his arms around Yassen's neck, Alex let himself be lowered to the deck, Yassen lying above him, silhouetted against the evening sun. He smiled up, instinctively, and Yassen kissed him again, softly at first, then with increasing hunger as Alex responded in kind. Yassen's body was taut and muscled, and Alex ran his hands along his shoulders, stroked down his arms, enjoying the new liberty to touch him. 

After a moment, Yassen lifted Alex bodily, laying him down again on the padded bench, straddling him in one fast motion. Alex caught his breath as he felt Yassen's weight pinning him down, realising exactly what it meant to give Yassen permission like this. 

They were both still only wearing swimming trunks, and Alex could feel exactly how aroused Yassen was pressed up against him. He reached up, feeling dizzily reckless, and pulled Yassen down into his arms, running eager hands over his back, moaning quietly as Yassen kissed his throat. He buried his face in Yassen's neck, tongue flickering along the faint scar line, tasting salt. He was hard himself now, and groaned again as Yassen pushed against him, an aching need growing within to give himself over utterly to the other man.

Thrusting against each other urgently, too impatient to even remove what clothing they had on, Alex nevertheless had the fleeting thought that Yassen was even now being careful of him, but the thought was chased from his mind by the shuddering climax that followed, spilling hotly into his trunks, too far gone to even be embarrassed. 

Lying in a breathless embrace afterwards, Alex grabbed Yassen's chin, turned him to look into his eyes.

"You're holding back on me," he whispered. "Stop it."

Yassen looked conflicted. "If I - if I take you the way I want to, I'll hurt you," he confessed quietly.

Alex flushed. "Might not," he objected, awkwardly, but Yassen shook his head.

"Trust me. I would," he said with a grim smile, and Alex swallowed. Could feel himself getting hard again already just at the thought of it. He sat up, and held Yassen's gaze.

"Take me," he breathed.

\--


End file.
